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Four Noble Truths: Samudaya (4 of 5) The Origin of Suffering

So then we continue with the fourth talk on the Second Noble Truth in the Four Noble Truths. I'm offering different interpretations of the Second Noble Truth in general. The value of these different interpretations is that each of them is a different pragmatic or practical way of exploring, being, and freeing ourselves from our suffering, rather than seeing the Four Noble Truths as a fixed doctrine that has a fixed interpretation and fixed understanding. It's possible to see it as a framework that can be applied to understand our life in different ways, all for the purpose of becoming freer and freer of suffering.

Sometimes Monday's interpretation is really useful: the causal interpretation. There's a cause to suffering, and if you can understand that cause, you can maybe do something about the suffering by changing the cause and letting go of it. Sometimes it is useful to look at the conditionality of suffering, the conditions for why suffering is there, and all the different pieces that come together, add together, and build up to create suffering. Sometimes we don't take care of the cause, but we change the conditions.

Then the third interpretation yesterday is the inconstancy interpretation. We're looking at how thoroughly and completely things are constantly shifting and changing, appearing and disappearing. Somehow, in the inconstancy of experience, it's clear that the grip of clinging begins to release. We start seeing freedom because of the inconstancy. As we go through these three interpretations, it's really going deeper and deeper in the mind. A stiller, quieter, more attentive mind that's not overlaying a lot of ideas on top of things. When we start seeing the fundamental inconstant flow of experience in deep meditation, it's really clear that there's freedom in that flow, freedom in between the things that exist and that flow, and that helps really release some of the deepest kinds of holding we have. It's the liberating insight, the liberating interpretation.

Today, the fourth interpretation I'm going to offer is the interpretation that talks about the origin of suffering. Some translators actually translate this word Samudaya^[1], which means arising in the Second Noble Truth, as the noble truth of the origin of suffering. Why do they say origin? This has a lot to do, I believe, with the Buddha's so-called first discourse. After the Buddha was enlightened, he went out to find his six previous companions^[2] in the ascetic life because he thought they were ready to hear the deeper teachings he had now about liberation and enlightenment. It is said that when he came to them, he taught them the Four Noble Truths.

In a kind of simple Dharma teaching—maybe "simple" isn't the right word, but we'll often say that the cause of suffering is craving, the condition is craving. That idea comes from that first sermon of the Buddha. It begins this way—and this is Bhikkhu Bodhi's^[3] translation: "Now this, bhikkhus^[4], is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving." So there it is, it is this craving. I think many times when Dharma teachers and even scholars are writing about the Second Noble Truth, they stop there. It's craving, and it is useful to look at craving—the thirst, clinging, this strong compulsive desire.

But actually, the passage goes on further, and the rest of it is often not discussed so much. What is the origin of suffering in this translation? What is the origin? It is the craving which leads somewhere, so it's kind of like a cause. Where does it lead? A particular kind of craving leads someplace: "It is the craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and craving for extermination."

This is an intense passage. Some people trying to understand what the Four Noble Truths are about are surprised to come across this particular explanation for what the Second Noble Truth is, because it focuses on rebirth. It's the particular craving which leads to rebirth. The craving that human beings have in a previous life—or craving to be reborn—is the origin of a person's next life. And it's also then the origin of all the suffering that person has in their next life.

So in this understanding of rebirth in multiple lives, all the suffering that you have in this lifetime has its origin in a craving to be reborn. The solution to not being reborn again and again into this world of suffering is to let go of a particular kind of craving: the craving of wanting rebirth. That's where we get this idea that the Second Noble Truth has to do with the origin, even though, as I keep saying, the word Samudaya means arising.

Yesterday I talked about these four liberating insights: insight into "this is suffering," "this is the arising of suffering," "this is a cessation of suffering," and "this is the practice leading to the cessation of suffering." I offered that interpretation, which I think well represents what the Buddha was teaching over and over again. That little formula, without the words "noble truth," appears hundreds of times in the suttas. People often think the Buddha is talking about the Four Noble Truths because it's so similar in wording, but he's talking about inconstancy and the immediacy of experience here and now.

This explanation here in the first discourse of the Buddha is much more abstract. It's not about the immediacy of present moment experience; it's about a story, an idea, a belief in rebirth, and an idea of how rebirth happens. It's a theory about rebirth, and now we've left the world of direct experience, at least in terms of a reader of this, and are pointing to a belief, a tenet, a creed. That the problem of suffering is the fact that we want to be reborn and that we do get reborn.

Now some people are maybe reeling to hear this: "What? This is getting more complicated. I didn't know. I thought practice and mindfulness was just about the present moment experience, seeing it here and now, deep insight into how things are here and now. And now we're talking about this fundamental teaching of Buddhism, that in order to understand the Four Noble Truths, you have to understand rebirth and believe that there's a craving that causes rebirth? How do I get to this root craving, this origin of suffering?"

For some of us, it's not so satisfying. But for some of us, it's very inspiring to hear this. People who believe in rebirth really want to see how to get off the wheel of life. I bet that for people who don't believe in it so much, it's a little bit confusing or even off-putting to have this wonderful teaching of the Four Noble Truths interpreted in this way.

One way of understanding this—and I received this idea from one of the great scholar monks—is that this discourse of the Buddha's first sermon is not meant to be the definitive teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Rather, it is a very particular elaboration of what happens when someone becomes fully awakened, like a Buddha, and how they no longer get reborn. The idea is, well, how does that happen? How do they no longer get reborn? They're explaining that for that person, the particular craving for rebirth has been uprooted and stopped.

Rather than the Buddha's first sermon being the universal teachings on the Four Noble Truths that we can understand for our lives, it's a very particular application of this framework to explain how someone who becomes fully awakened has been changed—the particular mechanism for that. So it's relevant^[5] for someone who is fully awakened, not necessarily for someone who's just trying to become free in this lifetime itself, as they go through their lives.

This whole idea is a little more complicated, but I think it's important for those of you who are engaged in Buddhism. If you're trying to reflect on the Four Noble Truths and you go back to the first sermon of the Buddha to make sense of these teachings, it helps to contextualize it and understand the particularity of what the focus is on. This way, we're not confused or think we have to adopt a tenet or belief, or apply these particular teachings to our practice.

So, the origin of suffering. Origin means the original place in the past life that gives birth to the suffering here. Some translators will translate this word Samudaya, meaning arising, as origination. You'll see this if you read different translators. I may not know the exact dictionary definition, but I think it maybe just means origin. Or maybe it's a hybrid or a vague way of talking about conditionality, talking about an origin that is not the fundamental original origin, but rather where suffering originates anywhere you can see it originating in the conditions for it—the more immediate cause in current times.

Whichever way it is, these interpretations are all material to swim in, to work with, and to apply to our lives. The purpose of all this is to be able to be present with clear eyes, looking clearly into our life, understanding what we're doing, how we're living, where the clinging is, what the craving is, and then understanding how it's useful to work through that to come to the other side of suffering.

Sometimes it's useful to see cause, sometimes condition, sometimes inconstancy. And maybe sometimes seeing the origin is useful or important to understand as part of it. We'll review all this again in a hopefully very practical way next week when we talk about Nirodha^[6], the cessation of suffering.

But for now, we're still looking at this Second Noble Truth, and we have one more talk tomorrow. I look forward to making efforts again to explain this to you, and hopefully, you're finding it practical. Thank you.